Q&A: Bad Combo
Photos By Louis Licatta
LSD AND A "WHY NOT?" ATTITUDE - are the two essential ingredients to Bad Combo's The Last EP. In a time where music is more accessible than ever before, more art than ever before are both being created and put out. Though most artists go the typical Spotify and iTunes route, Bad Combo decided to put their latest project, The Last EP, exclusively on Soundcloud with visuals on Instagram.
The band consists of Theo Buckwald on vocals, guitar and bass as well as Eddie Mestre on percussion, mastering and recording. The duo felt inspired fall of 2017 to create a multimedia project, and thus The Last EP was born the following summer. It was only recently that Buckwald and Mestre felt it was time to release their work into the world. Read on to get a better sense of how this all came about and the uncertain future of the group.
LUNA: Musically, who were some artists you found yourself drawing influence from for this project?
THEO: The whole project got started when we went to Camp Flog Gnaw in 2017 and got exposed to Bedroom Pop. It's a genre like I have never seen before. Its primarily composed of kids in their rooms making music on their laptops or phones. Its super raw and honest and lo-fi, but there are some super creative people working in it.
I was really inspired by Mellow Fellow and Boy Pablo. I loved how these artists were picking up guitars and drums and making love ballads. I would say that they inspired me the most to make music in the first place.
LUNA: On the flip side - visuals are a huge part of your artistry, so are there any notable influences for that?
THEO: Over the summer we watched the film "The Holy Mountain" by Alejandro Jodorowsky and "Head" by The Monkees. These films are super fun and you never really know what to expect. We also played a lot of video games for inspiration. We played al ot of Spiderman 2 on the Xbox and some classic Grand Theft Auto 5 on the Xbox 360.
LUNA: What’s your favorite song from the EP & why?
THEO: My favorite song is "What Do You Want From Me?" It just was easy to record and its a lot of fun to play. Sometimes when you make music you can get in holes of doing tons of takes and getting really stressed about the sound but that song just flew out of us.
LUNA: What was the creative process like for this EP?
THEO: We mainly just jammed and improv'd songs for a long time after Flog Gnaw. We didn't really have any direction at first and just spent a lot of time learning how to play the music we listen too. Usually I play guitar and Eddie plays drums and then we take it from there and maybe switch things up depending on what works best.
As the summer went on we decided to sit down and focus on making a solid body of music. We spent maybe two weeks microdosing acid and living in a communal space with all of our closest friends. We would often take long hikes around the surrounding mountains and gaze at the sunset. We also spent a lot of time in the Hot Tub. I find that the Hot-Tub is one of the most creative inducing environments for making music.
We figured out what we wanted pretty fast and spent about two months just capturing it and making it sound good for the record.
LUNA: What made you decide to keep this project exclusive to Soundcloud & Instagram?
THEO: Well when we finished the album we were very overwhelmed with a lot of things. This is our "Last" EP so obviously there was some tension with breaking up the band. We were both just very unsure of how to do things and what the best way to get exposure was. So we actually just sat on this EP for quite some time.
Honestly I was at Coachella a few weeks ago and got super inspired by the artistry and expression I was seeing. It made me reflect on the EP and think that something needed to be done. Rather than concoct any sort of master plan, we just decided to do it as raw as possible and post it and let the people decide its fate. Instagram is a super accessible platform and if people care to hear more they can go on Soundcloud. Maybe we will do more with it in the future, but right now I'm just not really planning.
LUNA: What do you want people to take away from your music?
THEO: If there is anything to take away it is to value friendship and work together to create wonderful things.
LUNA: Since this is the “Last” EP - what’s next for you both?
THEO: Unfortunately this is The Last EP. Eddie and I haven't actually seen each other in eight months and we only text every so often. Eddie is currently ice fishing in The Arctic Circle and I am working as a Security Guard at a Bank in Pasadena.
We don't have any other plans to make music but we are currently slated to get lunch in the next few weeks so maybe that will change. I know that I have some music in the works and Eddie has been toying with Ableton so maybe The Last EP wont really be The Last EP...
